According to details emerging in an unusual story from The Hollywood Reporter - not your typical source for Apple news - the Cupertino, California-based iPhone maker is being sued by a state-owned Chinese film studio.

The suit, which was just filed in a Beijing court, alleges Apple sold its movies in the iTunes store without approval.

Shanghai Animation Film Studio, which is backed by the Chinese government and is seen as a leading player in the nascent Chinese animation space, is seeking a little over half a million dollars in damages in the suit.

Although most headlines pertinent to illegal distribution of entertainment content usually center on Asian-based piracy of US-made entertainment, this most recent dispute just illustrates the two-way street of challenges born of the modern age of digital content.

According to a senior executive at Shanghai Animation, "We want to keep tight-lipped on this case because, as we see it, it's just a litigation in which we want to get compensation [for our product]... It's a sensitive period now since Apple is a big multinational company and it is surrounded by controversies on its practices in China."